all, between islands and broken ground; but the islands are very great,
many of them as big as the Isle of Wight, and bigger, and many less.
From the first branch on the north to the last of the south it is at
least 100 leagues, so as the river's mouth is 300 miles wide at his
entrance into the sea, which I take to be far bigger than that of
Amazons. All those that inhabit in the mouth of this river upon the
several north branches are these Tivitivas, of which there are two chief
lords which have continual wars one with the other. The islands which
lie on the right hand are called Pallamos, and the land on the left,
Hororotomaka; and the river by which John Douglas returned within the
land from Amana to Capuri they call Macuri.

These Tivitivas are a very goodly people and very valiant, and have the
most manly speech and most deliberate that ever I heard of what nation
soever. In the summer they have houses on the ground, as in other
places; in the winter they dwell upon the trees, where they build very
artificial towns and villages, as it is written in the Spanish story of
the West Indies that those people do in the low lands near the gulf of
Uraba. For between May and September the river of Orenoque riseth thirty
foot upright, and then are those islands overflown twenty foot high
above the level of the ground, saving some few raised grounds in the
middle of them; and for this cause they are enforced to live in this
manner. They never eat of anything that is set or sown; and as at home
they use neither planting nor other manurance, so when they come abroad
they refuse to feed of aught but of that which nature without labour
bringeth forth. They use the tops of palmitos for bread, and kill deer,
fish, and porks for the rest of their sustenance. They have also many
sorts of fruits that grow in the woods, and great variety of birds and
fowls; and if to speak of them were not tedious and vulgar, surely we
saw in those passages of very rare colours and forms not elsewhere to be